Video Gamers Podcast - Gaming is Dead, Long Live Gaming [Remastered] - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are back with another can’t miss episode. Join us as we chat the gaming trends that have gone extinct over the years. Things that were often the height of video gaming, but have gone the way of the dinosaurs and faded into video game nothingness. It’s a little bit of nostalgia, and a whole lot of fun! It’s another awesome video game filled episode from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/SKQvqrbT Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers podcast. Games come and go, consoles are born and die. Franchises may take over the world and then fade into obscurity, but the memories we make from gaming will last a lifetime. Sometimes it's fun to think back about what used to be, and that's exactly what we're doing on this episode. We're going to be covering some of our favorite gaming trends that are now extinct. It'll be a trip down memory lane like no other, but first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, Beanie Babies, Pogs, and Jinkos may be gone from his life forever, but he'll never let go of his precious bandanas. It's Ryan. I have, thank God for Amazon, because I have bulk bandanas that I just keep in my drawer, so I grab one of those bad boys for work. And then,

And, man, shout out to Pogs. I missed those so bad. Those were the bomb. I never played Pogs, dude. No? No, I know it was a huge fad. I just never actually got into Pogs. It was just a little bit past like, like, I missed it.

You know what I mean? I think I was just a couple years too old for the, like, the height of Pogs and stuff. But I was, I was a huge fan of Ginko's, dude. I had so many Ginkos. It was ridiculous. I remember my parents looking at me like, our kid's an idiot. Does this kid not know how to wear proper size jeans?

And I was just like, you guys don't know. These are super cool, man. This is what's going on right now. Funny thing is, Genecos are actually making a comeback, dude. Yeah, I've seen a lot of those 90s trends are coming back. Yeah, because they were awesome. Yeah, 90s.

It's the bomb. The bomb. Well, welcome in everybody to the VideoGamer's podcast. Thank you for joining us. I am so excited for this episode. It's been a little while since we've kind of done a, I don't want to say a retro, but maybe like an episode that talks about, you know, gaming back in the day, you know, as far as that goes. So if you are over the age of, you know, 25, let's say, this is going to be right up your alley.

And if you're under the age of 25, we promise, stick with us. You're going to have a good time. You're going to listen to old people reminisce about some of the best parts of gaming. and it'll give you insight into that kind of OG, as we like to call them, gamer brains. Learn your history. Yeah, exactly. Learn your gaming history, youngsters. But stick with us because it's going to be fun.

Ryan, as we like to do at the start of episodes, we like to read a review. We always say, hey, if you enjoy the podcast and you've been listening for a while, or this is your first time joining us and you get to the end of this episode, like, dude, all right, fellas. Like, that wasn't bad. You know, then think about leaving us a review. If you're on Spotify, you can rate us five stars. If you're on Apple, you can actually leave us a written review, which we love to read on the show. Like this one that comes in from Save the Turtles, and it's titled, I freaking love you guys. This is the best podcast ever. And it says, okay, first things first, bed pot, best podcast ever, freaking love you guys.

I love video games. I like that you talk about video games and it's just great. I love it so much and I think you should be really proud of this podcast. I think everyone will love this. Even my little brother. Not really little, but he loves video games. Maybe at a game with turtles in it, that would be great. I haven't listened to all your podcast yet, but all of them. So I'm just writing this review to tell you guys this is amazing and don't forget to save those turtles. I like turtles. All right. awesome. I love turtles number one. Turtles have always been, dude, I've always been a turtle guy. Especially when they're teenagers and their mutants. Oh, man. What an awesome review though. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, we don't like to get sappy too often on this show because we know people are here for the gaming chat, but we just wanted to just say thank you. You know, like, we've been doing this show for a while now. And, you know, it's tough to, number one, it's tough to just have a podcast in the world when there's 80 gazillion podcasts out there. You know, and anybody that figured out how to record audio on their phone is like, oh, I'm going to do a podcast.

And so it's very hard to, you know, do a podcast number one. And then it's almost infinitely impossible to have people actually find your podcast and then tune in and then tell people about it. But there's something happening, Ryan, that is happening in 2025. And it kind of started late 2024. But we are seeing, like, legitimately, like, something special, dude. And I know we say this a lot, but, like, it's blowing up, man. The growth is here. It is here.

Like, we have always used the snowball analogy, and we've used that analogy for years, where it's like if you make a tiny little snowball and you push it downhill, it just kind of gets stuck. But if you get enough snow in that snowball, it will start rolling down the hill on its own and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger all on its own. And we've kind of lived by that analogy. And we feel like the snowball is actually like getting to the point where it's starting to like get away from us a little bit. It's moving. Like we're like we're reaching our arms out to try to like keep pushing it. But it's really just picking up speed.

And it's a dumb analogy. especially for dudes that live in the desert. But it is, it is legitimately what is happening right now. We are so humbled by the people in our community, by the people that tune into this podcast and the response that we get from that. People that write in, we get emails,

we get people showing up in our Discord server that are just like, dude, I listen to you guys with my kids. I listen to you guys at the gym. You make my days better. I've been a gamer my whole life. It's awesome to find other gamers that aren't toxic and things like that. We get people that are like, dude, I'm a gamer, but I have no friends to play video games with.

And it's like they join the Discord server and now they have people to play games with. You do now. Yeah, exactly. And we're like, dude, nobody should ever have to play games alone if they don't want to play games alone. You know, but the world's a tough place. And it's hard to meet people sometimes. So we just wanted to take a minute. We're not going to gush over it.

We're not going to get too sappy. but we really are, I mean, I think I'm more excited than I've ever been for the future of this podcast. And I know you are too. And it is, it is really something special to see. There is something special happening. I mean, we've always said we are just gamers. We're not industry people. But this podcast is at the level now that the big industry podcasts are kind of at and have had a stranglehold on. And we're just two dudes. We don't have editors and content creators and, and, you know, a crew of 20 people, you know, that are coming up with ideas. We don't have like a recording studio. We don't have any of that stuff. And yet we're there with them. And it's very, it's just exciting to see. But at the same time, it's humbling for us.

And one thing that we will always promise is we will always be gamers who appreciate gaming. We will always be honest. we will always love talking video games and we will always be there for our community as well. Yes. It blows my mind that we have people that join our Discord server and they're like, whoa. Like you guys are here? Yeah. And they tell us all the time like, oh, I joined this other podcast server and the hosts are never

around. There's nobody there. You would never know that like it's part of this podcast or something. And we're like, why? Yeah. I don't know why you wouldn't want to hop in. I mean, it's one of my favorite things. things, you know, a lot of people get up and they'll scroll social media or read the news or things.

I go right to the Discord and say hi to everybody. Good morning. Everyone's already chatting away with speaking of the snowball and how big it's getting to. Like every time I click it open, it's like 50 missed messages. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm getting it hard to like keep track of these now and keep up with the topics. But it's, it's been so awesome. And yeah, thank you for me too. Man, it's, it's cool. It's different. Something I didn't expect for sure. Yeah, it's something that it's weird because we've worked for it for a very long time, but I think we're finally starting to see like some actual serious traction happening. Yeah.

And it's just, it's freaking awesome, man. So thank you to everybody. That's enough, you know, being sappy. We're going to leave it there. But, right, let's get into this episode. All right. So we're going to be talking about some of the things that used to exist in gaming that are just simply gone. Gone.

Gone with the way. don't exist anymore. The world has passed them by. The need for them is gone, but they hold a special place in our hearts. We're going to be diving into what made them special. Why they kind of bring back memories for us. And we're going to do our best for those that maybe didn't get to experience to capture a little bit of the magic of what made these things great and why we're bringing them up in the first place. So let's do it, Ryan. Buckle up, buddy. Let's turn on that car. Let's take a trip down memory lane and nope, no, Ryan,

Ryan, you forgot to put the car and drive again. V-hmm, boom. Dang it, there we go. Dang it. Away we go. All right, let's do this, Ryan. Listen, I am a little barely tiny bit older than you. Yeah. But I know you still,

this is the first thing I want to bring up. Arcades. Yes. I, like, did you did you get the opportunity to just go and hang out in arcades when you were a kid? So I didn't have it to like the extent that you probably did to where kind of console gaming and co-op gaming and stuff at home was so much more prevalent in my youth. But I did go to, I remember a lot, a few of the malls around me as a kid and then some of the small amusement parks,

like local ones that had large arcades. I loved to go. I loved to go play the old teenage We're in turtles, the old Simpsons game, battle people for high scores at Pac-Man, just all of that for, you know, getting that clout and you got the rep of, I got the high score, you know, at the arcade type thing. The showdown on Mortal Kombat. Do you ever, do you ever get the opportunity to step up to some stranger? Heck yeah. Mono e-mono at the Mortal Kombat machine and be like, man. Didn't always end well for me, but I did it. So one of the things when we talk about arcades, too, and this is very much lumped.

in for me is, you know, you had your giant arcades in the mall. You would be walking through the mall. And I mean, it was, these things were massive, dude. I'm, you're talking like hundreds of machines. Oh, yeah. People, people, people hear about like Dave and Busters now. And it's like, Dave and Busters takes up like a wider scale because they have like the restaurant and the bowling lanes and all that stuff. But it's like, you know, back in the day, a good arcade would have hundreds of machines in there. And all you could hear is that chiming and the ringing sound and the, whoop, whoop, who, who, who, and all that. And as you walked by, it was just a flood of, like, endorphins for, like, a kid brain at the time.

It's like here in the ice cream man around the, on the other street in your neighborhood. You're like, oh, oh, you know, you're like, your brain just starts pumping. You're like, yes, yes, you want to go in, you know. But one of the things that I always think about with arcades as well. And I think people forget about is the going to Pizza Hut with your family on, like, a Friday or a weekend. and they had the little dark corner of the Pizza Hut. They had like the two or three arcade machines in it. You know, like Street Fighter 2 is one of my favorite games of all time.

And I remember there was a 7-Eleven that was a couple blocks from my house that had two arcade machines in a dirty, dusty, creepy corner of that 7-Eleven, man. But I can't tell you how many, like, honestly, like hundreds of hours I spent as a kid in that dirty, little corner of that 7-Eleven just playing street fight or two for hours at a time. Anytime I found a quarter on the street, dude, I was running to that 7-Eleven or riding my bike to it and then just playing a round or two. Oh, man. And so for me, arcades, they follow that as well, where, you know, if you had a couple machines somewhere in a store and you could just plunk a couple quarters into it, you know,

play your buddy or something like that, dude, it was such a magical time. and I know there's going to be people that are like, aha, but these still exist. There's Peter Piper pizzas, there's, you know, Dave and Busters and stuff.

It's not the same, it's not. No, it's not even close to the same. I don't think because it's, it's definitely more about that like, poppy fun kid atmosphere where they have, you know,

a lot of, like, youth and kids games and, and the arcades were just straight up. This is all the best that's out there. this is the latest awesome games that are that are out now that you've got to come here to play them. So it was, yeah, it was it was just something different. They're definitely not the same.

No, it's not. And that's why I'm bringing up these arcades vault. The other thing, the other really cool thing was you never knew when a new game was showing up. So if you were walking by and you saw a line of like 20 people all huddled around a machine, it did not matter if you were going to get in trouble or not. You would break off from your parents. Run over there to see what the hype was. Like, what's everybody's. Darren. What's this game? Mortal Kombat 2! I didn't know Mortal Kombat 2 was out! You know,

your mom would start yelling at. You're like, no, no, no, mom, I'll be right here. I won't move. I swear, you go shopping, come back and get me. You don't understand. You don't understand. Please, please, please. Yeah. And you would. You would beg. It was just kid Nirvana. It was gamer nirvana to be an arcade, man. Even if you didn't have money, you would just watch people play games. You know, you'd watch them fight each other in Mortal Kombat or whatever game was the hot commodity that was right up front. I really miss arcades, man. And it's something that they're gone forever, but man, was that it's such a good time. Well, and it was also, it was kind of like, you know, we like to talk about our Discord as like an oasis for gaming.

Like, that's kind of what, I mean, video games have not always been as mainstream or looked upon as, as well as they are today. You know, and it was a place for kids that like video games that, you know, a lot of times got bullied or made fun. and stuff. They could all be there with everyone else to like the same stuff that they did and just, just veg out and game. Let me give you a quiz, Ryan, because only older gamers will know this. And all the older gamers out this, I know you know the answer to this. All right. You're at an arcade. There's two dudes playing street fighter. Somebody walks up and puts their quarter on the on the face of the machine. What is that me? Challenge accepted. I'm up next. I'm up next. I'm up next. You know what I mean? Winner stays, loser pays, right? Like, a dude that lost, you go to the back of the line and whoever

quarter is up next is the guy that gets to put that quarter in the machine and play next. Yep, yep. It was the unspoken rule. You never broke that rule, man. Yeah. And I don't care if there were 10 quarters lined up on that machine. You knew exactly which quarter was yours. Yeah. You know, oh, man, I miss those days. Josh, you guys can't see it. Josh is fired up right now, for sure. I am. All right, Ryan, what's one that you got in mind? Oh, man. So I'm going to do one that let's deal with one that everybody knows like when you think about it back in the day of things you remember

you know one of the big ones for me was always the cheat codes Cheat codes looking up your old cheat codes getting all that stuff like who I mean do you want does anybody really use cheat codes nowadays Like they don't exist they don't like what you know Back in the day it was like start select L1L2 R1R2 left on right up left on right up

And then you know there's a A million, especially for the old GTAs, like to where you would go, you'd look them all up, and then you would use all those cheat codes just to have fun and go crazy and do stuff that you normally wouldn't do in the game, or even Tony Hawks put perfect balance on and all those crazy ones. But it's just you don't, not only do I not even think about it, like I just don't even think like you said, they exist anymore. I think we call them mods.

I think, yeah, just mods now, basically. I think the world's most famous cheat code. Now, you might be a little too young for this, Ryan. But Contra. Oh. So do you remember that it's called the Konami Code? Yeah, I'm familiar with it and of it, but I don't remember what it is. It's burned into my brain forever, dude.

I would be 97 years old and still able to. It's up, up, down, down, left right, left right, B.A. start. It's just, I mean, it's there for. ever, you know? Exactly. And it was the, it was the cheat code that gave you 30 lives in Contra versus three. And even with those 30 lives, you probably still weren't beaten Contra, because that game was hard. But cheat codes were, they were just, it was really neat because people have to remember, this was the days before the internet. Yeah. So how does somebody find out, like, what a cheat code? You can't just go on Google and be like, Contra cheat code because Google didn't exist back then.

You know, so like the really neat thing was you would be at school. And like, and kind of like the switch to release that we were just talking about where like word spreads like wildfire. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it would be like, you'd hear this murmur. And then it'd be like, dude, dude, did you hear you can get 30 lives in Contra? And you're like, what? How? Dude, there's a cheat code.

What do you mean? There's a cheek code? What is it? It's up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. B, A start. And then you're like, okay, wait a minute, slow down. Let me write this down. You know?

And nobody would write it. You would just draw arrows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Like arrows left, you know. And it was like, and then you'd run home after school. You put it, you know, you'd throw in contra in there. You'd put it.

And sure enough, it would go booboo, boop. And then there would be like 30 lives. And you're like, oh my gosh, you worked. Yep. Exactly. I remember having my, you know, lined paper sheet that had all the codes for like Tony Hawk. And I had them all written down. And like you said, it was like, you know, all symbol.

style and Alps, arrows, triangles, all that stuff. But yeah, man, there was just something like it to find that new codes and you could share them with your buddies. Hey, try this one when you get home tonight and then tell me tomorrow at school. You know, it's just, yeah, it was, it was such a cool thing. It was also the worst when somebody would tell you cheat code and then it wouldn't work. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Because they got like either one thing wrong or it was just, you know, it just wasn't right. And you just keep trying it. You're like, come on. And then you'd get frustrated. You'd be like, dang it's like trying to log into something now and you forget. get your password and you just keep trying. Yep. Yeah, you just keep trying it until it, like, threatens to lock you out.

And then you're like, oh, maybe I'll just request this password reset instead. So, all right, listen, we're going to take a quick break. And then we're coming back. We're going to talk about midnight releases, Ryan. Oh, yeah. We'll be back in just a second. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds.

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Medcan. Live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. All right, Ryan, we are back. And dude, I don't know that there is a moment in gaming that gets you more excited than a midnight release of a game. And I know for a lot of people that they've never experienced this,

that they're going like, huh? Like, what's so big about that? You got to understand when a major game was getting released and they did a midnight release, GameStop would stay open or whatever your game store was, you know, at the time, would stay open to midnight. All those poor employees who have to stay the entire day or come back. And it was usually in a mall and, you know, the mall would not normally stay open that late, but now the mall is open and it's like everything's closed down except you'd see this like, you know, this, this traffic of people all walking through this like, almost like abandoned mall, walking towards the game stop. And you would round a corner and there would be, you know, a hundred people waiting in line at a closed game stop.

Yep, yep, yep. Right? And the excitement in the air was bananas, dude. Everybody was there for the exact same thing. You guys were there to pick up this game. The excitement for that game was unreal. It was such a good time to be a gamer because you were with your people, man. Exactly.

Kind of like we talked to the arcade. Like not only are you all gamers, but you are all there for the exact same game. Like you were all in the line. and you all talk about your favorite parts on the game, what you liked about it, what you didn't like, what you're anticipating in this one and how excited you are. There was just,

there was something different. And, you know, I'm maybe a little happy that we don't have to do that anymore because getting the game at midnight and then, then you want to play it. You're staying up till who knows when, you know, you may see the sunrise,

you know, that, that morning. But it was just, it was one of those things that the, the community getting together for this release and showing the excitement of how many people are in line and how crazy they are for their anticipation of it. It was something else. It's the really neat thing too. And I remember this vividly, dude. I can remember a few times

where I still have these memories like burned into my brain. One of them was Red Dead 2, Red Dead Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2. That's actually the last midnight release that I went to. So that was seven years ago. And so it doesn't seem like that long. you know, but I legitimately remember waiting in line for Red Dead Redemption 2 to pick this game up. And it's exactly what you said. I was so excited. I got home. It used to be that you could just come home with the game, pop it in and play it right away.

But Red Dead Redemption 2, I remember like coming home and it was like, this game must perform an update. 98 gigabytes remaining, you know, estimated time like two hours. And I was like, no. then you try to go to bed because it's late. And then you're like, all your brain's doing is being like, maybe it's going to install early. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you'll be able to play it.

And then you can't sleep at all. You go back. You look at it. You're like, no, it's still going. And then, you know, you wake up early and try to get on a little bit before, you know, you got to do whatever. But yeah, man, there was, uh, yeah, there was nothing like it. I freaking, I loved it.

I do. The other thing that was really neat about the midnight releases is as you're standing in in line, you're talking to the people around you. Yeah. And they're so excited. for the game too. I remember, I can't remember which Halo it was, but I do remember standing in line for a halo release. Probably three. And it was just that, it probably was three. And it was just that like, dude, you hear, like, you're going to be able to fly a banshee in this one. Yeah. And you're like,

what? Like, really? And they're like, dude, I heard man, you're going to actually be able to fly a banshee or you're going to be able to play as an arbiter. And you're like, no, man, no, that would be the coolest thing ever. And it would just be like those conversations where you're just hyping the game up, you're talking about, like, the things you've heard about this game or what's going to be doable or, you know, the multiplayer part of it and all that stuff, man. And when they open those doors, dude, and everybody comes in and then they, everybody gets their game and copy. And then it just, they all just scattered, like roaches out into the parking lot to go home.

It was better than Christmas sometimes. It was. You'd see people just running, man. They were so excited to, like, have it in their hands. Yeah. You know? Oh, yeah. Oh, it's just awesome.

It's weird because I certainly don't want to stand in line at midnight anymore. but that is one of those things like I actually miss as a gamer. I would do it for another elder scrolls, but that's better. All right. What's up for you, Ryan? Well, speaking to getting a game and taking it home, what, you know, do you remember as one of your favorite things when you pick up that new game that you have just been wanting

and, you know, you can't obviously play it in the car. What do you do? Oh, buddy. You sit and you just scour through that manual. Oh. Those, those, you look through all the characters, you read their bios, you look at like the descriptions, you look at the controls so you know ahead of time, like, all right, I'm going to be ready. I know that this button does this, this does that, you know, get a little bit of backstory,

read over the case, you know, a few times, reread everything again because you're still so excited. There was just, that was one of those that, um, I desperately miss being able to just sit and browse through the game, you know, game manuals. people don't understand either because nowadays like almost every game comes with a tutorial kind of built into it. Yeah. And so they're like, what did you guys need game manuals for? But these game manuals were really in depth. And a lot of times they were almost like works of art in and of themselves because it's like you said, like sometimes they would introduce you to the characters and have like little writeups like you're playing as, you know, Mario, you know, or something like that. And it would give you like a bio on Mario, a bio on Peach. And, and, you know, you know, know, Luigi or whatever the game was that you were playing. And like a lot of times there was art or screenshots from the game in the manuals as well. And then the other cool thing was like you said, the controls, right? Because the manual would actually tell you how to play the game, but you didn't know. Like that's the thing. Like you'd be like, wait a minute. Dude, I can triple jump.

You know, because you didn't know that. But the manual's like now to triple jump, press a followed by a followed by A. What? No way. And then you get home and the first thing you do, be like, I want to see this triple jump, man. Yeah, yeah, I want to try this out for sure. Yeah, speaking of, dude, check this out, man. Ryan is showing me a Metal Gear solid manual for the original PlayStation.

It's my, this is my original copy from 1998 that I got when I was a kid. Dude. It just, it has the table of content and it's got like all the, maybe I'll throw some pictures up on our Disney. button mapping on there that explains all the buttons. It's got the character's names in it. It's got the background. Yeah, see like the art and stuff. Oh, the prologs. So you know what's going on before you did. Like, we talk about anticipation, right? Like this is this, this is for people that never

understood the joy of like a game manual on the ride home with your game. Yeah. Was imagine you order, let's say a brand new computer monitor, right? And you're waiting for it. You've ordered it from Amazon and you get the notification that it's like, your item has shipped. Dude, that anticipation before it shows up, the number of times you check that tracking number to see what city it's in,

that's the same exact feeling that you would get from these game manuals while you were driving home. It was always in the back seat. You know, your mom or your dad was driving you and you're just engrossed in this thing, man. Trying to read it when you pass by street lights

or do you turn it on the light and you get yelled at. I'll get a ticket with that lights on. Oh, okay. I just get you to do this one part. That's not true, by the way. You don't get a ticket. Yeah, that is actually a myth.

Oh, man. I did see, and I think it was, I got to give credit to MoBox on our Discord server. Yes, yeah. Was actually bought, like, found an artist that, like, recreated a bunch of these game manuals from days, you know, gone. Not the game, but the, you know, days long ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People like, days gone, that's a weird game to have a manual for. but and it was actually really neat and so that there are people out there that definitely appreciate kind of the history of the old uh the old game manual there Ryan you know I thought this is where I actually thought you were going when you were talking about the excitement of a new game. Oh. Dude, was there anything better in life than a Friday night? You get out of school. You go home.

You know, you don't smell anything cooking. you know, you're like, hey, mom and dad, you know, hey, what's going on? And they're like, hey, get ready. We're going to go to Blockbuster. Do you want to rent a game for this weekend? We're going to pick up some pizza on the way home. Dude, perfect night. Perfect, perfect Friday night.

What else can you want? I don't know that it gets any better, man. And then you would just, you would be so excited and your parents would take you to Blockbuster or whatever the store was. where I lived, we had West Coast video. I remember that was like the big chain store where I was. But you'd walk in and you always knew where the game section was. Your parents would split off.

They didn't care about you at that point. They're going to find a movie they want to watch. And just a gigantic wall of nothing but video games. And you had to find your console. You know, it'd be like, you know, Nintendo, PlayStation. Unfortunately for me, I had the teeny little section that said Sega. You know, but you, you just, you'd have the game boxes, man, and you'd flip them over and again, you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. And so you'd pick up a box that looked cool.

This is when cover art really mattered. Yes. Because it would catch your eye. They had to get your attention because back in the day, again, this was before reviews. This is before the internet. You know, and it was like, if they didn't get your attention, you'd just skim right past it. Yeah. And the picking up the box and the reading the back and being like, oh, man, am I in the mood for a platform? This looks kind of cool. Yeah. Oh, what's this one? A racing game?

Do I want to play a racing game this weekend? Nah. Oh, a fighter? You're like, okay, yeah, let's do that. Yep. And then, or it was a new, it was a release that you knew was coming out and you would run to that section.

There's the one copy left. Or, yeah, it was the one copy left because if it had the box behind it, you knew that it was in stock. The worst feeling in the world was just seeing 20 boxes of something and then no boxes. behind it. Yep.

And then what would you do, Ryan? If it was really a game you wanted and the boxes weren't on the shelf, what was the one thing that you would do right after that? You'd go up to the front and see if they had anyone turn any end. Absolutely. Every time. Yeah. You'd be like, excuse me, has anybody returned Halo 2?

And they'd be like, oh, let me check, you know? And then they'd start digging through. And half the time it was like, no, sorry. But every now and then you'd see them open it up, clip it. And they'd be like, oh, yeah, here's one. And you were just like, oh. Yeah, exactly. And then you get that and you're in the car and then they get the pizza and you're just smelling the pizza and you've got your game and just life is great.

You know, mom, can I eat my room, please? And then they're, they're happy because they've got a babysitter for the night. So they're just like, yeah, go ahead, go off and play. And you just disappear and do nothing but game for the rest of that night. And it just, you know, man, yeah, that's one of those peak like childhood things. It really is. The main thing was you don't ever. ever return that game late.

Yeah. At least in my family. Dude, if you forgot that that game was due back, because you always got two days, right? Yeah. Like you got a Friday night and Saturday and it had to be back. I don't know.

Like, was it Saturday night or Sunday? I don't remember because it's been a while. But it was like, if you forgot to turn that game and your parents' account got a late fee slapped on it, boy, were you in trouble. Oh, yeah.

And those were like expensive back then too for a late fee. So it's, yeah, a big deterrent. But yeah, you would, you would not be getting a game for, while, that's for sure. Oh, man. I miss those days, dude. My brain just went into some insanely happy place right there. Yeah, I'm with you, man. Those are awesome. But speaking of a happy place and just the excitement of playing the game, when that game hits your kind of hit your brain at such a good level that all your buddies are playing it too, and you all want to hang out and play it together, what would you do?

You pack up everything. Everything you have. You take your console. You take your controller because you don't want to use your buddy's nasty controller that he might have laying around. Mad cats, what? Yeah, yeah. I ain't using the clear purple one. What are you talking about? But it rogbles.

Yeah, no thanks. I don't, I don't care. You know, and you all link up and you just, you can play these games that you normally don't play with each other. And you're all sitting there, you got your soda or whatever, you know, maybe pizza for that too. And you can all just laugh and joke and talk crap to each other right next to each other. And it was just there was something something about the old school land parties, man. Dude, land parties. I know we just talked about land parties the other day. Yeah. It's like,

but this, this really deserves a moment because. Got to mention. Yeah. Yeah, because it's one of those things that's hard to describe to people. And again, you know, everybody can play games on the internet together, you know, and it's like, that's great. It's convenient. I'm not saying, I don't really appreciate the ease of which we can hop into a game together. You know, we have Discord so you can talk together easily and all that. But again, there's something different when you had to plan it number one, you know, and it's like, oh, dude, dude, did you hear Ryan's coming? He's bringing his game or console and then Paul's come in.

And, you know, you would start firing off names. And it's like, wait, we're going to have like eight guys playing. Like, yeah. All right once. You'd move like, you'd actually like rearrange the. furniture in a room so people could set up everything, dude. You'd have your own little like command station where it's like you had your monitor, your console, your seat, your snacks next to you. The game would fire up and you'd look around the room like, all right, everybody good,

everybody good? Like, yeah, all right, man, let's do this. It is just matches. And then you'd be talking trash to your buddy that's across the room from you. So and so would be, you know, don't look at my screen, man. Yeah, no screen looking. You're up there sitting right next to you. Take that nerd. Yeah, I remember one of my first big ones that I remember was with Paul, actually. Somebody brought over an extra Xbox and we booted up Halo, Lance, together, and we had eight guys or whatever. And it was like the coolest thing ever. My mind was blown. It really is hard to describe to people the amount of joy and fun that you have when you are with your buddies playing this game in the same room together.

And you had to plan it was the other thing. Like this, there's something to be said for reaching out to. all your friends and saying, hey, man, you guys want to come over, you want to have a lane party? And so-and-so's like, oh, man, I can't. My parents are doing this or whatever. But when you'd get that group together and people would start showing up, like, you know, your doorbell would ring. You open up the door. There's your buddy standing there holding his console and his hands, like trying to teeter everything.

Like, dude, come on in, man. Like, just, oh, there was something about it, man. Love it. Ryan, we're running a little low on time on this one. A couple quick hitters maybe on this. the days of the old strategy guide. Oh, yeah. Now, I will say this.

I was not a huge strategy guy, like person, you know, I just played the games and I kind of figured them out. But there was a day when you could not just Google the answer to something or the solution to a puzzle or which person you were supposed to go talk to to get this quest or hand it in or where to find this item. And what was your option? Yeah, you didn't have one. The only one was a strategy guide or a friend, a knowledgeable friend.

Yeah. Or that had a strategy guy who had already beaten the game. And you're like, dude, where the heck do I find this armor? Yeah. You know? And he'd be like, well, dude, did you go over here? And you're like, oh, like, okay. Yeah.

But the strategy guides were awesome because they were made for the game. And again, they were almost like works of art. Like they had screenshots of almost every screen in the game. Yeah, yeah. You know, like where like little arrows pointing towards. Hey, if you jump here, there's an invisible coin box that you can get. And it really just kind of laid everything out for you. And the nice thing was is that because it kind of went from like the beginning of the game to the end of the game,

you didn't wind up like spoiling anything for yourself either. Yeah, exactly. Which was really nice. So you could kind of just turn into the guide where you wanted and kind of figure out and then just put it to the side and be like, oh, okay, cool. But a lot of times they'd include cheat codes. Yeah. You know, and they'd say, hey, if you're playing this game, like watch out for the guy that's going to pop up behind you. you, but then at the bottom of the page, it would be like, cheat code. And be like, you can get

this item or this weapon or extra lives or something like that. And it really just, it added that layer to games that is awesome. Now, I, again, I'm a little bit older than you, Ryan. And so before strategy guides got really popular, if you got stuck in a game, you had zero option except for one thing. And that one thing was an old, was an old, I don't remember. if it was 800 number 9. I think it was 1-900 if I remember right because you knew you had to pay, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you could call. Now, famously, Nintendo's the most famous for this. You could call a Nintendo game counselor. And there was a whole show on this, dude, that was awesome to watch. And you could call this 1-900 number and a real live human would pick up because, you know, we didn't have these phone answering things back then

and push two. Yeah. A person would pick up. and say like, hey, my name's Jeff. I'm a Nintendo game counselor. What can I help you with? And you'd be like, hey, Jeff, I'm playing, I'm playing Final Fantasy. And I don't know where to find this thing, you know?

And then Jeff would be like, oh, awesome. Dude, Final Fantasy is such a good game. Where are you stuck at? And they were just like, they were people that, like, you thought they knew these games inside and out. Yeah. And it was the most amazing. Like, you felt like you were talking to like the professor of Nintendo.

The Grandmaster. Yeah, like legitimately because there was not a question they could not answer. Dude, that's wild. See, I never, I never, that was just before kind of my time with having to do that. So I never had the experience. But man, that just sounds so weird dialing up a number and calling some random dude be like, hey, help me get through this level. It was, there was a little bit of awe.

I'm not going to lie. Like Sega had one too. I had a Sega as a, and I remember playing fantasy star and getting very, very stuck trying to find this like underground. dungeon thing that I needed to progress for the game. And maybe I was just dumb and I missed clues to it or something like that. And I remember very vividly begging my parents to say, mom, dad, it'll only take about five minutes.

And it was like a buck a minute, dude, which back in the 80s was a lot of money. Yeah, that's a lot of money. And I remember begging them and begging them to let me do this. And they finally said, okay. And it was the exact same experience. It was some person picked up. They were like, hey, my name's so and so, what are you stuck on or what can I help you with?

And I was like, hey, I'm playing Fantasy Star. and they're like, oh, great game, man. And I was like, yeah, I'm really liking it, but like, I cannot find this dungeon. And it was neat because it was a conversation. They'd be like, okay, well, where are you at? And I'm like, oh, well, I'm on the second planet. And I'm right outside of this town.

And they'd be like, okay, and you're trying to find this dungeon? I'm like, yeah. And I'd be like, okay, well, do you know where this is? And I'd be like, yeah, yeah. And they'd be like, okay, and you have a little pen and paper and you write this down because it's costing you money. And they're like, okay, and they're like, okay, go to here, stand right outside the gate.

now go five blocks to the left and you're like okay go three blocks down okay now go seven blocks left again okay now go two blocks up and like okay and then press B and you're like okay cool and then you hang up the phone real quick before like another minute rolls by yeah yeah yeah and then you just run to your system and then you finally got it figured out and it worked oh dude best money ever peak gaming man yeah and then Ryan you brought up this one and this one made me chuckle you know the internet exists we've we've we've moved We fast forward to the future. You know, we've got dial up internet, buddy.

Oh, man. Dude, you can play with your friends now. You get that little squelchy, squealy sound when the modem connects. I was going to say, I'm going to, I'll try to throw in that audio. So the younger, younger crew, if they haven't heard it, they can hear it. It's so good. Every person that grew up with the dawn of the internet knows this sound. You can hear it right now in your head.

But Ryan, you're playing, maybe you're playing Doom with your buddies. You've managed to connect, you know, to each other's computers. What is the absolute worst thing that could happen to you? Oh, man, it's exactly what happened to me playing Diablo 2 with my buddies online trying to do bail runs or who knows what. And old grandma just decides to pick up the phone. And what happens? Now, the worst part was, in your game, you can hear Grandma talking. That's the part that people don't understand.

It wasn't like just getting disconnected. You know? Yeah. And here, hello? Hello? There's no dial tone. And then you'd be like, Grandma! Hang on the phone!

Hang up the phone, Grandma! Disconnected. Connection lost. Oh, dude. It was the worst. Oh, where'd Ryan go? Oh, he's gone. Oh, no.

And it was not easy to like reconnect at that point. It took a long time to get back onto the internet. Like you had to go and log in. and then it took forever to connect to the modem and whatnot. It was a process back then. It was the rarest thing, dude. It was like finding a unicorn. But if somebody picked up the phone and knew that you were playing and hung up the phone

within, I think it literally had to be within the first second. Yeah. Like it sometimes would not disconnect you, but you just were waiting for it, waiting for it. And then you're like, what? I'm still here. I'm good to go. There was nothing like yelling up or down the stairs that was like,

I'm playing. Don't pick up the phone. Or they try somebody try to make a call or something. Oh, I'm going to call this. No. Yeah. Oh. And then what was the thing when call waiting started to come around?

You had to dial something to shut down call waiting because call waiting wouldn't actually interrupt your thing for a second. Oh, I think that is. Yeah. So you had to do like star, it wasn't star 69 because that was the call back the number. Yeah. But it was like Star 40 or something like. that where it would actually turn off like the call waiting part so that it wouldn't it's it wouldn't

disconnect you even then it would just give them a busy signal man what we had to go through as gamers i'm telling you man people don't know how good they got it nowadays it made us tell you my son i'm like dude he just gets on anything he's playing castlvania on a little teeny emulator game boy thing and i'm like man yeah back in my day i had right my 10 miles to blockbuster to hope that they had it in stock to beg the guy at the counter to find it, to then, you know, then ride home with it with one hand on my bike because I got to hold the cartridge in one hand

while I ride home on the other one, you know, and then hope that my brother's not playing something on the TV. Like, yeah, people don't know, man. They don't, they don't. But I'm sure they'll say that about the future when who knows what's going to happen. It does make me wonder, I legitimately thought this, right?

Like, what are the memories the gamers are going to have, like, from their, like, my kids are 14 17 now and they've been gaming for a while. Yeah. So it's like, you know, when they're 40, what's the thing they're going to be like, dude, when we were gamers, like my dad would have to reset the router sometimes. Yeah, can you imagine? I would, I'd be lagging and I'd say, dad, can you reset the router?

And there was only like, I don't know what it's going to be. There was only this many players on Fortnite. It was, it was just, oh, man, what ancient times. I remember when they took building away from Fortnite. Yeah. And the world was a dark player. It's like, I legitimately wonder because like we joke, right? And this is definitely like a kind of trip down memory lane episode.

But every generation of gamers is going to have its memories and it's things that stand out to them. Yeah. And it really does make me wonder like what those things are going to be, you know, for our kids where they think back and they're like, dude, I remember the days. Maybe it's just the games themselves at this point because the technology has kind of advanced. I will say, I think the first time putting on a VR headset would be up there. I'm sure. You know, I do remember, like, my kids, I was like, we got a quest and I'm like, check this out.

And there was the demo where the giant T-Rex, like, walks over them. And they were like, oh, what? So I do think there's going to be those kind of, like, mind-blowing, like, memories that they have. I just, it's really exciting to me to kind of try to, like, jump forward 20 years. Yeah, what's it going to be? I mean, even more recently, I remember, you know, and this isn't when, in my, youth and stuff. But like, I remember when I got, um, the little wireless internet card for, uh,

adapter thing for my 360. Yeah, I remember that. I couldn't get my land cable there and, and then, uh, my mom wasn't going to get me one. And I got, I got that. So then I could get internet. and I'm like, yeah, it's not going to play gears of war, you know, and stuff. Uh, and, uh, yeah, it was, um, there's nothing like it. But yeah, every, every, every generation is going to have their things that they remember for sure. Yeah. Well, if you are of the younger generation at this point, you know what, come tell us. You know, you've got to have memories at this point. Come join us. Hop into our Discord server. The link is in the episode description. It's an awesome community. We would love to hear like what some gaming memories that you have are or maybe

some things that you're like, dude, I can't believe you guys didn't mention this. You know, and then we'd love to reminisce with you as well. Or like I said, if you're a little bit younger, like what stands out to you at this point as well. But our community is awesome. It's family friendly. It's non-toxic. It is just the most incredible community. that honestly exists on the internet. I can't, I can't like stress that enough. And everybody that joins is like, whoa, you're right. This place is awesome. So make sure you join us in our Discord server. Again, that link is in the episode description. If you're not following us on socials, you can follow us at VideoGamer's Pod. And you know, if you enjoyed this episode,

make sure you follow this podcast. Open up your podcast app right now, unless you're driving, didn't do it later. Click that follow button, click that plus button, the subscribe button, whatever it so that you get the video gamers podcast episodes the day they release and you can get excited along with us. Ryan, that's going to do it for this episode. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Man, this was a fun one, buddy. I'm going to cry about thinking how old I am now. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to order pizza tonight. That's it. You know, my kids have access to any game in the world on Steve at this point, but we'll at least capture a little bit of that magic. Pizza game night. Maybe I'll do the same for them.

So, but once again, thank you, everybody. We appreciate you. Thanks for joining us. And we will see you next time. And until then, happy gaming. See ya.